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you have the wrong view point. he just have a different opinion than you.

he single handled managed to fool RH and all distros into turning Linux administration just like windows. systemctl list of services is so inspired by the atrocious windows' admin list of services (which have 3 fields supposed to describe the service, but they all just tell you the name again).

it's no wonder his reward was a job at Microsoft.

but again, he's good in all three aspects. you just disagree on building the torment Nexus that is putting Linux in the "standard certification" target for sysadmins.




I continue to be baffled at this widespread belief that Poettering somehow hoodwinked every single major Linux distro into accepting a shit product with, idk, hypnosis or something.

Is it not possible that systemd is simply better than the alternatives, and the distro owners are smart enough to notice that, instead of just wrapping themselves cultish mantras about The Unix Way and how anything which resembles a design used in Windows is bad by definition? Or could that not possibly be it and he must've used mind control magic.


Yes, it has always reminded me of the old "Apple just sells all those shiny devices because they're good at marketing" trope.

As if marketing alone could do that. Poettering does seem to be, to a casual observer, kind of a dick. Arrogant, dismissive of competing products... kind of like that other guy — also kind of a dick — who supposedly had that "reality distortion field" that hoodwinked all those poor saps into buying his phones.

There's no fucking way in hell you are able do that if the user base doesn't think the product is good. To those saying it, I always reply, "It may not be the product you want, but a shitload of people disagree with you, quite obviously."

I'm not personally a huge fan of the iPhone or systemd. But they are both clearly "the best" for the largest number of people. (And that is even clearer for systemd, as it doesn't cost hundreds or thousands of dollars more then the competing products.)


never said that.

just that his vision was garbage, and everyone knows. but he stood by it. and nobody was putting the same energy he was to either offer better or stop it (rejecting bad ideas also take energy. see gnome deep dive into garbage as another example)

Linux is mostly made from scraps (eg Bluetooth and wifi entire stacks) or misguided but funded things. the age of scratching own itch is mostly gone


> nobody was putting the same energy he was to either offer better or stop it

which was much easier thing to do, compared to an outsider, considering he was on Red Hat's payroll, along with the people (gnome/freedesktop crowd) he had need to convince


It's inspired by Apple's launchd.


only in it's a rewrite of the concepts from inetd but using dbus and abused for local services.

which is a big part, but not the one most people complains about.

the actual UX is very much windows like.




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